Fin de Siglo - Once-glamorous remnant of pre-revolutionary Cuba

The front window of the once elegant Fin de Siglo department store is shattered, with a hole the size of a soccer ball.

But what has become of the cavernous interior is what upsets long-time Havana residents who lament the stark deterioration of the renowned store - and by extension the entire Cuban economy.

In pre-revolutionary times, Fin de Siglo’s five floors were packed with stylish clothing, perfumes, tableware and wedding gowns, along with lamps, furniture and other household goods.

At Fin de Siglo, you could get a new suit or dress tailored on the spot, purchase bedding, stock up on hardware supplies and sample sweets and other treats at the ground-floor bakery.

Its popular hair salon, decorated with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, overlooked the ground floor displays and allowed women to visually browse the aisles while getting their hair permed and hands manicured.

Today, Fin de Siglo is one of Cuba’s last-stop shopping venues, a place where bargain hunters go to scrape the bottom of the barrel of a socialist economy that limps along almost a half-century after the triumph of the revolution.

All but Fin de Siglo’s ground floor is shuttered.

What remains for sale: piles of secondhand clothing and old auto parts for Russian-made vehicles, including side panels, front doors, windshields, engine blocks and mufflers.

Behind one counter sits a stack of used British overcoats - not a hot commodity in sweltering Havana. Across the aisle are hundreds of glass beakers, test tubes and other laboratory equipment.

In an impoverished nation where little is discarded and everything is recyclable, the broken items are on sale for Cubans who can either fix them or cannibalize them to repair other machines.

“With changes in technology, these products aren’t useful anymore,” said Alberto Hernandez, co-manager of Fin de Siglo. “But we’ve created a store for people that still need the different items or their parts for their home or work.”

Others are less generous in their evaluation of what has become of the great retailer.

“Fin de Siglo was the most beautiful store in Cuba,” said Yolanda Iglesia, 47, a former employee at the retailer, which had retained some its grandeur until a decade ago. “Now, it’s been destroyed.”

Sitting near one end of Italy Avenue, more commonly known as Galiano Street, Fin de Siglo was one of a handful of grand department stores that flourished in pre-revolutionary Cuba along a commercial stretch beginning at the city’s sweeping seaside boulevard, the Malecon.

There was El Encanto, the department store burned to the ground by counterrevolutionaries in 1961, along with Flogar, La Epoca and Ten Cents, a Woolworth-style chain.

The Galiano district was not only for Havana’s elite but also drew a mixture of classes of people who came to shop and marvel at the elaborate window displays, bright lights and rich array of architecture ranging from art deco to neo-colonial.

“It was very elegant,” recalled Orestes del Castillo, 69, a professor of architecture who also works at Havana’s Department of Architectural Heritage. “People used to come on Saturday and Sunday afternoons just to stroll.”

Like much of Havana, Galiano Street suffered a steep decline after Fidel Castro’s 1959 triumph as the government nationalized businesses and funneled scarce resources into health, education and other programs along with the military.

Cuba has been further impoverished by the U.S. trade embargo and by what experts describe as Castro’s wrong-footed policies that have left many Cubans collecting their $10 monthly government salary while hustling the black market to make ends meet.

But it was the collapse of the Soviet Union - Cuba’s largest trading partner and the source of several billion dollars in annual subsidies - that spelled the death knell for Havana’s old department stores.

Today, many vintage buildings along Galiano Street are boarded up, gutted or in various states of disrepair.

The old stores that remain open retain the faint aura of 1950s Americana along with the paltry selection of goods once sold in the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.

As the great grand daughter of Amado Grabiel, owner of Fin de Siglo before Castro’ revolution, this article has made me very sad. I/we had no idea that Fin de Siglo was in such a terrible state. I guess I should not be surprised, but part of me hoped that the store was still as grand as it sounds it the stories that my grandparents and mother would tell me. Maybe one day it will be what it once was.

AR - I worked at Fin de Siglo as a young woman, and am currently writing a book about Havana, in which Fin de Siglo is included. I would love to talk with you about your related experiences and memories. How can we get in touch?